a. Also 4 weyles, 4, 7 wayles, 6–7 wai-, waylesse, way-less, 7 waieless. [OE. weʓléas: see WAY sb.1 and -LESS. Cf. Icel. vegalauss out of the way, lost in the woods, MHG. wegelôs, mod.G. weg(e)los.] Having no way or road. Chiefly of a country, region, etc.: Trackless, pathless.
c. 1100. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 149/20. Auiaria, weʓlæsa beara, secreta nemora. Ibid., 177/17. Inuium, unʓefere, uel weʓleas pæð.
1387. Trevisa, Higden, II. 219. Man … fel … out of hous in to maskynge and wayles contray [L. de domo ad devium]. Ibid. (1398), Barth. De P. R., XIV. iii. (Tollemache MS.). A weyles wildirnesse [L. invia solitudo].
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. 389. If without wings we fly … Through hundred sundry way-less wayes addrest.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., ii. 164. As though the peopled townes had way-less deserts been.
1630. Drumm. of Hawth., Flowres of Sion, Hymne Fairest Faire, 162. With wonders new my Spirits range possest, And wandring waylesse in a maze them rest.
1690. C. Nesse, O. & N. Test., I. 462. He was also their courteous companion in all their wayless ways.
1821. R. S. Hawker, Cornish Ballads, etc. (1904), 258. Joys such as these, Visions of wayless fancy, were the fire That burnt within me.
1901. ‘Zack,’ Tales Dunstable Weir, 151. The bush which from his account was wide-spreading and wayless.
Hence Waylessness.
1871–4. Hort, The Way, etc., i. (1894), 37. The delightfulness of the opening world depends in no small measure on its semblance of waylessness.
